# Independent ecommerce and commercial advisory for UK retail and consumer boards. > Independent ecommerce and commercial advisory for UK retail and consumer businesses. An operator’s judgement for boards and PE investors before you commit to technology, transformation or growth investment. Diagnosis before solutions. Source: https://barkingcat.ai/ Diagnosis before solutions. In two to four weeks you know the one constraint holding the business back, the evidence behind it, what to do first, and what not to spend money on. [For boards and CEOs](https://barkingcat.ai/review/) [For investors](https://barkingcat.ai/investors/) Retail and consumer businesses from £20m to £1bn, founder-led, PE-backed and listed. ## Why you are here Something is not working, and the room cannot agree what. You are most likely here because someone thought you should be. A conversation at an event, a post that landed, or a name passed on by someone whose judgement you trust. And you are probably here because of a specific feeling. The numbers are not moving the way the investment says they should. The agency wants a replatform. The technology team wants better data. The board wants an AI answer by the end of the quarter. Everyone in the room has a solution, and no two of them are solving the same problem. That is the moment this practice is built for. Not the moment you have diagnosed the problem and need a pair of hands to execute it. The earlier one, where you can feel that something is wrong and cannot yet name it, and every voice offering to help also happens to sell the fix they are recommending. You do not need the problem defined before we talk. Working out what it actually is happens to be the job. ## Proof +50% international growth, heritage apparel 9% to 22% of revenue, a £1bn consumer electronics business 82% growth three years running, furniture retail 120% year-on-year growth, online fashion [RTIH Innovation Awards judge 2026](https://retailtechinnovationhub.com/2026-rtih-innovation-awards-judging-panel) · [eCommerce Expo 2026 speaker](https://www.ecommerceexpo.co.uk/speakers/steve-webster-1) · [Agentic Commerce and Payments Summit, Stockholm](https://kinfos.events/speakers/steve-webster/) ## Two ways in One recognition point, two diagnostic questions. Each diagnostic stands on its own method, and what follows either of them is optional, not automatic. ### The Review ### The Barking Cat AI Diagnostic ### Focused advisory ### Ongoing counsel ### Or it concludes here Nothing here loops and nothing returns. Two diagnostics, two separate methods, and no arrow claiming one engagement leads to the next. Also on the site: [the problems we help solve](https://barkingcat.ai/who-this-is-for/#the-problems), [three ways in, not three rungs](https://barkingcat.ai/who-this-is-for/#three-ways-in), [what Barking Cat is not](https://barkingcat.ai/independent/#what-barking-cat-is-not), and [where AI spend pays back](https://barkingcat.ai/the-barking-cat-ai-diagnostic/). ## The Barking Cat Review What your customers actually see Most leaders learn about their website from inside the building: dashboards, agency decks, and the opinion of whoever spoke last. Your customers see something else entirely, and they vote with their baskets. The Barking Cat Review walks your proposition the way a customer does, and reports it as a clear-eyed account of the experience you are actually selling, seen from the only side of the screen that spends money. It is not an operations review. - **The walk**: The first search, the landing, the product page, the basket, the checkout, the parcel, the return. - **Measured against**: Traffic, conversion, order value, margin, repeat. - **You receive**: A quantified diagnosis, the one constraint that is actually binding, and a plan sequenced so your leadership team can govern it, landed in a working session rather than left on a shared drive. - **Timeframe**: Two to four weeks, deliberately light on your organisation. [BOOK THE CONVERSATION](https://calendar.app.google/8udhezX71BHZaB5NA) ## Thinking Published judgement, dated and specific The practice writes down what it believes, when it believed it, and lets the record keep score. September 2026 ### Bulletproof for the Golden Quarter The Q4 readiness playbook: seven foundations where a binding constraint can hide, the 2025 peak read through Currys and The Works, and a 23-point pre-peak checklist. Free, no form. September 2026 ### Should we replatform? Six questions a retail board should ask before committing to an enterprise ecommerce platform, from the chair that approved the spend. August 2026 · Index ### The Commercial Experience Index, Edition Two: Premier League Club Shops All twenty Premier League club online stores, scored out of 100 across eight measures read from the live shopfront. Bournemouth top the table on 73. The famous clubs build good stores for humans and poor ones for machines, and sixteen of the twenty return a 404 where an AI agent looks first. Full 26-page PDF free to download. ## Contact steve@barkingcat.ai Barking Cat Advisory Limited. Registered in England and Wales, company number 17338003.